A day with Zain al Shabab

Welcome to Peace Wadi, where we hosted Zain al Shabab for a day of volunteering on the farm. We were really excited about this event because it meant the local youths from Amman could help us plant our planned Moringa tree field. This tree is well known for its nutritious and almost miraculous features, where all parts of the tree (bark, seeds, fruit, and leaves) have applications.

 

After feeding the cats, we started preparing homemade date molasses for our guests. As always, under the supervision of Mohammad.

With the trees already delivered and the molasses cooking, we were ready to welcome Zain youth.

After the Zain al Shabab members introduced themselves, Mohammad explained the concept of the farm and talked about the activities he had planned for the day. “Why plant Moringa trees?,” you might ask. This work has an educational goal as the farm should work towards sustainable and highly nutritive plant growing. And that is what our Peace Wadi wants to promote.

The nutritional goal was explained by Abou Youssef, the local greenhouse operator who delivered our Moringa trees. He explained to us that the tiny leaves of Moringa could save millions of lives.  The small, rounded leaves are packed with an incredible amount of nutrition–protein, calcium, beta carotene, vitamin C, potassium– and have been used as part of traditional medicine for centuries.

 

We were then ready to start planting the trees all afternoon. Thanks to their motivation and team spirit, we managed to finish the work quickly. We also set up the irrigation system and made sure the trees were being watered in their new homes.

Everyone was satisfied and proud, and after the work was complete we went on a tour of the date farm. While Mohammad explained how to cultivate dates, the whole group were focus… well maybe not everyone.

We ended this beautiful day by sharing a meal all together, prepared by our farmer, Abou Baker.

We are all very grateful to Zain al Shabab for their energy and their help. We hope to see them soon and look forward to welcoming them and other local volunteers back to the farm.